NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion Wrestling team lost 29-3 to the No. 8 Virginia Tech Hokies on Tuesday evening in front of an attendance that reached 1,489 people at the Ted Constant Convocation Center.

“We had five matches that were tough matches,” said ODU head coach Steve Martin. “At 197 Kevin Beazley had an opportunity to beat Chris Penny. We’re in a situation where instead of keeping it a 3-3 score he lets him escape. Jeske wrestled the whole match. The last five guys that Jeske has wrestled have been ranked in the top-20 so he has had a tough schedule, but he wrestled really well tonight. I also thought Mecate stayed with Devin Carter. I only thought we had five guys that wrestled the entire time. We will use this to get better. Virginia Tech is a very good team.”

At 125 pounds, ODU’s Brandon Jeske gave the crowd that was in attendance a great match as he took on VT’s No. 20-ranked Joey Dance. Jeske led 5-4 until the final seconds when Dance scored a takedown to win 6-5 by a decision.

The 141-pound weight class placed top-10 ranked opponents against each other as ODU’s No. 9-ranked Chris Mecate went up against VT’s No. 3-ranked Devin Carter. Mecate would hold off Carter for most of the first period until Carter scored both a takedown and a near fall to give him the 4-0 lead. Carter won 9-3 by a decision and handed Mecate just his third loss of the year.

ODU’s No. 16-ranked Alexander Richardson battled VT’s No. 9-ranked Zach Neibert in the second to last featured match of the night. Neibert won by a 5-3 decision.

At 197, ODU’s Kevin Beazley was tied 3-3 with VT’s Chris Penny, but Penny was able to escape and pick up a 5-4 decision win.

The Monarchs are back in action on Friday, Dec. 6 as they host Eastern Michigan for the MAC conference home opener.